"Please... please..."
The proud man struggled to plead.
Gu Qingfeng's grip remained steady, his hand firmly around the man's neck. The man's face had turned from red to a deep purple.
"The weak should hide in the corners of the world and train, not come to places like this to strut around. If you don't have the self-awareness of being weak, then dying is just the natural consequence. Didn't you say that? How is it that now that roles have reversed, you're trying to deny it?" Gu Qingfeng said calmly.
But by now, the proud man's eyes were rolling back, and he couldn't utter a single word.
Gu Qingfeng suddenly released his grip, and the proud man fell to the ground with a thud. Oxygen rushed back into his lungs, causing him to gasp and cough violently.
"Don't worry, I won't kill you. If I did, wouldn't that make me no better than you? Your twisted worldview won't change just because you're dead. I need you alive so you can spend your entire life correcting your mistakes."
"Cough... cough... What do you want to do! I am..." The proud man looked at Gu Qingfeng with terror, trying to invoke his background to intimidate him.
But Gu Qingfeng didn't give him the chance. Instead, he interrupted him, placing a hand lightly on his dantian and said, "I'll destroy your dantian, sever your meridians, and make you a weakling for the rest of your life. You'll live in endless pain and regret. Every night when you sleep, you'll remember today, the mistakes you made. This memory will become your lifelong nightmare. At first, you might hate and be angry, but years later, as you lie on your deathbed, reflecting on your life, you'll be filled with regret. Regret for having such twisted thoughts when you were young, regret for provoking me.
So, try hard to repent."
Gu Qingfeng suddenly exerted force, but at that moment, a female voice rang out from a distance: "Stop!"
The personal maid of Miss Hongli, who had been leading the way earlier, came running toward them, apparently trying to stop the tragedy.
Gu Qingfeng ignored her, his right hand suddenly exerting force, slamming fiercely into the proud man's dantian.
"No!!!"
The proud man screamed like a madman...
Bang!
With a single strike, the dantian shattered, and the meridians were severed. The man's scream was cut off instantly.
His eyes bulged, blood mixed with fragments of his ruptured internal organs spewed out, and his head slumped to the side as he lost consciousness.
By then, the maid had also arrived. Seeing the proud man's condition, she glared at Gu Qingfeng with fury: "Why did you use such heavy-handed force!"
Gu Qingfeng glanced at the maid calmly and said, "He attacked me first, so he had to pay the price."
"But you weren't injured! Why did you have to cripple him?"
"Oh?"
Gu Qingfeng showed a slight surprise. This familiar feeling... could it be the inter-dimensional version of a saintly hypocrite?
I wasn't injured; that's my skill. He was severely injured; that's his lack of skill. Does that mean I can't fight back just because I wasn't injured?
"Then, according to you, what should I have done?"
"Of course, it should be about harmony. Since he had acknowledged your strength and didn't intend to take the room number one, you had no reason to attack. If everyone took a step back, wouldn't that be a win-win situation?"
Gu Qingfeng narrowed his eyes slightly, calmly looking at the maid: "Do you know he attacked me without any warning? If I weren't skilled, I would have been dead."
The maid rolled her eyes impatiently: "You're twisting the facts. The reality is that you came out unscathed, while this gentleman is now a cripple."
Gu Qingfeng looked at the maid's self-righteous demeanor and suddenly laughed.
He understood a truth: some arguments are simply impossible to win.
Saintly hypocrites are so annoying because they stand on the moral high ground, pitying others without any principles, siding with the weak without understanding empathy or perspective-taking. They blindly advocate for magnanimity, believing that whoever is weaker is always in the right.
They fail to understand that one should not advise others to be magnanimous without experiencing their suffering.
"Oh, so I was slapped, and I should just let it go and seek harmony. If that's the case..."
Slap!
A crisp sound echoed, and a blood-red handprint appeared on the maid's delicate face.
The maid was stunned. She looked at Gu Qingfeng, who was smiling, in disbelief. It took her several seconds to react.
"You hit me?!" The maid suddenly shouted, her voice twisted with anger.
"How dare you hit me?! As a man, you actually hit a woman. Do you know I'm the favorite maid of our Miss Hongli? She knows all the dignitaries in Wutong Prefecture, you..."
"Shh!" Gu Qingfeng interrupted with a smile: "Please seek harmony."
The maid was instantly infuriated by Gu Qingfeng's attitude: "You hit me, and now you want me to seek harmony? You're waiting! I'm going to tell Miss Hongli right now. You're dead... uh..."
The maid's angry voice cut off abruptly as a strong hand gripped her delicate, fair neck and lifted her into the air.
"Uh... uh..."
The maid's expression suddenly turned fearful. She struggled desperately, trying to call for help, but could only emit muffled sounds.
Gu Qingfeng smiled at her, speaking calmly: "Do you have some misunderstanding about me? I was speaking nicely to you, but you thought I was easy to talk to? Did I give you too much face?"
He patted the maid's cheek, his smile growing: "Didn't you say to seek harmony? Why are you so upset when the victim is you?"
The maid looked at Gu Qingfeng's smiling face with utter terror, as if seeing a demon in human form. She struggled with all her might, but the hand around her neck was like a vice, gripping her tightly as if to crush her throat.
"Don't worry, I won't kill you. You're just like that guy, with twisted worldviews. That's a sickness, and it needs to be cured! Luckily, I'm quite good at treating this kind of illness. Today, I'm in a good mood, so I won't charge you for the treatment."
With that, Gu Qingfeng's eyes flashed with crimson light, and his Eye Technique, Illusory Vision, instantly activated.
After the maid locked eyes with him, her eyes rolled back, and she fainted.
Gu Qingfeng released his grip, and the maid collapsed to the ground like a dead dog.
"Enjoy the illusion I've prepared for you."
Gu Qingfeng had personally crafted an illusion for the maid, one designed to cure her.
In the illusion, the maid would be tormented repeatedly. Every time she had enough and tried to fight back, someone would step in to advise her to be magnanimous, to seek harmony. If she didn't listen, she would provoke the crowd and be punished.
This cycle of being bullied, resisting, and then being punished would repeat endlessly.
This illusion wasn't a one-time spell but was imprinted on the maid's being. Every time she fell asleep, she would enter the illusion.
Only when her worldview was completely reformed would the illusion dissipate.
Previously, the illusion couldn't achieve this level, but with Gu Qingfeng's increased spiritual power, arranging such an illusion for an ordinary person was effortless.